01 October 2007

What a wild weekend of football! Bet that cliche was uttered in nearly every broadcast across the country. Given all the upsets in college (and near upset of the USC Trojans) on Saturday, and the many surprising results in the NFL on Sunday, you had a week full of surprises.

As far as my picks went, got the early games, and blew it on the later games. San Diego defies explanation (beyond the obvious, Norv Turner should never be allowed to be head coach anywhere, ever, retroactively for all of time, if you had a time machine available, or some mystical influence were throwing you back in time, then you'd be doing the world a favor in convincing all GMs not to even think about promoting Norv Turner beyond 'offensive genius' as a coordinator status). Likewise, the Philadephia Eagles' inability to block the previously porous Giants defense also leaves me gobsmacked. On to the individual game breakdowns . . .

Oakland 35 Miami 17Woohoo! The Raiders (2-2) destroyed the home team. Culpepper scored 5 times (3 with his legs (and knees), 2 with his arm) and I completely forgot to mention the revenge factor going into this game. Miami (0-4) is poised to win a bunch of meaningless games at the end of the season like they do every year. Once they're eliminated from playoff consideration, suddenly the 'Phins become unbeatable. Oakland, all the sudden has a fantastic running game. If Justin Fargas' performance in this game wasn't a fluke, then the Raiders might not only break .500 for the first time since their Superbowl season, but they might even win their suddenly crappy looking division. They are still a couple of levels in quality below Indianapolis and New England, but you might be able to consider them in the 2nd tier of AFC teams along with Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Denver and Jacksonville (right now formerly top tier teams like Baltimore and San Diego aren't even in the second tier of teams).

St. Louis 7 Dallas 35Woohoo! Can't take much credit for calling this game right. St. Louis (0-4) has been hit by injuries, and a general lack of talent. Dallas (4-0) are clearly the class of the NFC right now, no other NFC team is close (with the possible exception of Green Bay). The Cowboys haven't been 4-0 since their last Superbowl winning team in 1995. This team isn't as good as that team, but with the state of the NFC at the moment, this team doesn't need to be that good to make it to the Superbowl (winning it all is a different story, though). We'll found out whether this team is for real or not when they play New England the week after next (assuming they don't have a let down when they travel to Buffalo next week).

Kansas City 30 San Diego 16D'oh! San Diego (1-3) has already lost more regular season games than they did all of last year. Plus this loss was at home, something that hadn't happened to them all last year. This team has almost all the same talent as last year's squad, and yet they stink. All those fantasy football folks who were lucky enough to get the number one pick in their drafts and immediately jumped all over drafting LaDanian Tomlinson must be feeling really crappy about now. Serves them right for wasting their time with fantasy football. LT had his best game of the year, but it didn't matter. A -2 t.o. rating will screw up even the best teams, that's been the story in all 3 of these San Diego losses. If they win their next two games, they'll be in OK shape, if they lose either or both of their next two, their season is over. KC (2-2) is still a bit enigmatic, Huard is pretty awful, and Johnson is going to have to carry a huge load. They're going to win some close games, and lose a few more close games, I suspect, they are one of the many 7-9 or 9-7 teams making up the bulk of this league.

Philadelphia 3 NY Giants 16D'oh! 12 sacks! 12 sacks!! 12 sacks!!! How do you give up 12 sacks!!!! You have a supposedly mobile QB in McNabb, but the Philadelphia (1-3) offensive line just fell apart in that game. Understatement of the week spoken by NY Giants' Defensive End Osi Umenyiora, "We knew we would eventually get some sacks. We have some of the best pass rushers in the league on this team. We put it all together today." I guess collecting six sacks in one week will make you say stuff like that. I still don't think the NY Giants are very good. Their defense went from giving up 97 points in their first 10 quarters to holding their opponents to 3 points in the last 6. Which team is this? I was certain their season was done at halftime last week, and they were working to get Coughlin fired, now who knows? As far as Philly, the loss of Westbrook makes them one dimensional, and extremely vulnerable, it's going to be a long season, good thing the Phillies made the playoffs, that takes some pressure off them for a few weeks.

New England 34 Cincinnati 13Woohoo! Didn't take a football expert to pick the winner in this game (even against the spread). New England (4-0) are the best team in football right now, and Cincinnati (1-3) has talent, but are screwed with multiple injuries to their LB corps. Even if they were at full strength, wouldn't have mattered against the Pats. Brady did throw an INT, so maybe there is a sliver of hope for the rest of the league. Also, the two teams didn't combine for over 100 points as I half expected, so the Cincy defense has to take some pride in holding New England to their lowest point total of the season (34 instead of 38 like in the previous 3 games). There's a tiny chance that New England will look past Cleveland (and the big showdown in Dallas against the Cowboys on Oct 14th, circle your calendars) and forget to win next week. (but that might all be part of Belichick's master plan, to refocus the team, and get the distraction of going for a 19-0 season out of the way early, that guy's a genius, if they lose on Sunday, it will because he wanted them to)

This week's 3-2 performance brings my overall record to a still lousy 8-11-1, while my nemesis Bill Simmons has managed to match my 3-2 record for the week (on the picks we picked differently we split, I got Oakland right, he got NY Giants right), so he sits at a less sucky 11-8-1. I have been getting killed with these night games. My Sunday night record is 1-3, and my Monday night record is 1-2-1 (thanks to jumping on the New England bandwagon for this week's Monday night contest). So for day games I'm a less awful 6-6. I might look like I knew what I was doing if it wasn't for those Sunday and Monday night contests.